front cover of Marx and the Robots
Marx and the Robots
Networked Production, AI, and Human Labour
Florian Butollo
Pluto Press, 2022
Marxist discourse around automation has recently become waylaid with breathless techno-pessimist dystopias and fanciful imaginations of automated luxury communism. This collection of essays by both established veterans of the field and new voices is a refreshingly sober materialist reflection on recent technological developments within capitalist production.

It covers a broad range of digital aspects now proliferating across our work and lives, including chapters on the digitalization of agriculture, robotics in the factory and the labor process on crowdworking platforms. It looks to how 20th century Marxist predictions of the 'workerless factory' are, or are not, coming true, and how 'Platform Capitalism' should be understood and critiqued.

Through rich empirical, theoretical and historical material, this book is necessary reading for those wanting a clear overview of our digital world.
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front cover of Rereading Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism
Rereading Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism
Christian Fuchs
Pluto Press, 2019
The 'end of history' has not taken place. Ideological and economic crisis and the status quo of neoliberal capitalism since 2008 demand a renewed engagement with Marx. But if we are to effectively resist capitalism we must truly understand Marx: Marxism today must theorise how communication technologies, media representation and digitalisation have come to define contemporary capitalism. There is an urgent need for critical, Marxian-inspired knowledge as a foundation for changing the world and the way we communicate from digital capitalism towards communicative socialism and digital communism. Rereading Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism does exactly this. Delving into Marx's most influential works, such as Capital, The Grundrisse, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, The German Ideology and The Communist Manifesto, Christian Fuchs draws out Marx's concepts of machinery, technology, communication and ideology, all of which anticipate major themes of the digital age. A concise and coherent work of Marxist media and communication theory, the book ultimately demonstrates the relevance of Marx to an age of digital and communicative capitalism.
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